KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A couple of summers ago, Patrick Mahomes and his family were touring through Europe, and at some point he became acutely aware that the escape from his sport placed him in the epicenter of another.

Five months after nearly 200 million people watched him become the first quarterback in two decades to repeat as a Super Bowl champion, twice as many people would watch Spain win the European Championship. Mahomes found himself in the middle of both, captivated by 17-year-old Spanish forward Lamine Yamal.

Two years later, he watched the World Cup this summer not from the beaches along Spain’s southern coast, or the streets of European cities where he could feel the energy of the tournament, but from the cinder-block walls of a rehabilitation room inside the Chiefs’ practice facility.

A different view.

A different energy.

The same refuge.

“It gave me something,” Mahomes told The Kansas City Star, “where I could just watch it during the day while I was rehabbing every day.”

Mahomes did not allow cameras in the room during a rehabilitation from the most serious injury of his career. Not even the Chiefs filmed a record of how he has spent the past nine months.

The peek inside the journey, therefore, comes from those who witnessed it — and from the man who lived it every day.

“This has been,” general manager Brett Veach said, “a remarkable thing to watch.”

In less than two weeks, Mahomes is tracking toward starting the Chiefs’ season opener against the Broncos, nine months removed from his knee surgery. When he reassumes a prominent spot in the game he loves, trace back to the 274 days he spent without it.

That behind-the-scenes picture illuminates, well, the more boring of settings: a training table, a trainer, some workout equipment and a TV flipped to the World Cup to help the most popular man in the building pass the most lonely time of his career.

And it illuminates far more about the man himself.

The first objective

The Chiefs didn’t offer an exact timeline for when Mahomes would play football again. He had a particular date in mind, though, and the team’s training staff informed him it was at least possible: the second weekend in September.

Week 1.

“If you put something out in front of me,” Mahomes said, “I want to go out and get it.”

One night after the injury last December, he underwent surgery in Dallas to repair his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and lateral collateral ligament (LCL). The rehab process began less than 24 hours later.

After he returned to Kansas City later in the week, he shared with some of those closest to him a more immediate goal for his recovery.

He wanted to walk before his baby daughter, 11-month-old Golden.

Her first birthday was approaching. She would soon take her first steps, and then a couple of more, and then a few steps would become a run.

Mahomes wanted to beat her to it — not only because of the progression of his rehab but because he wanted to keep up with his three kids in their everyday world.

The ensuing nine months have been a grind, he described them, and not simply because of the initial pain he had to push through. It’s the time required. It’s the everyday nature of it.

That kind of consistency is the foundation of any rehabilitation, said Aaron Borgmann, a former Chiefs physical therapist and athletic trainer who now runs his own company in KC, Borgmann Rehab Solutions.

“It’s the consistency for creating the environment in which good things can happen,” said Borgmann, who spoke generally, not about Mahomes specifically. He did not treat Mahomes. “It’s showing up and clocking in every day. It’s, hey, I’m going to work today with what I (have), no matter what that is.”

Mahomes worked alongside Julie Frymyer, the Chiefs’ assistant athletic trainer who also works with several other players.

Nick Bolton, a veteran linebacker, is among them. Bolton spent a week this summer in Kansas City, sandwiched by two World Cup matches, and wandered into the team facility.

Beforehand, he texted Frymyer.

“Hey, can I get an early morning workout,” he asked her.

Not today, she replied. She was busy working with another player.

Mahomes was in the building.

He was always in the building.

And even when he traveled, he took Frymyer on the plane with him.

In the first weekend in July, Mahomes jetted to the East Coast for Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift’s wedding in New York City. Several of the guests stuck around to enjoy the city. But less than 48 hours after the wedding, Mahomes was back in Kansas City and back on the training table.

The ensuing weekend, he left for California to attend the wedding of former teammate JuJu Smith-Schuster. Again, back in a couple of days.

After a visit to Oklahoma City to watch Texas Tech in the Women’s College World Series, he managed to not miss a single workout in the facility.

Most of the organization — front office and coaches included — took vacations in June. Veach, the general manager, stopped in the facility a few times during that stretch, separated by weeks, and in each of those instances he saw one player in the building.

“I mean,” Veach said, “he gave up an entire summer.”

A few visitors stopped by the training room during the nine months. At one point, Mahomes’ head coach, Andy Reid, shared the room with him, rehabbing after knee replacement surgery. They talked ball to pass the time.

But mostly, Mahomes arrived and worked without socializing, instead left to his thoughts, with the World Cup to interrupt them.

While Kansas City took a victory lap for hosting the tournament, the World Cup became the soundtrack to his rehab.

“He watched so much of the World Cup that he became an expert. He knew about as much as anyone else I talked to,” Veach told The Star, “other than maybe (owner) Clark (Hunt).”

After a few days watching and taking in nearly ever match, Mahomes had a winner picked out, as Veach recalled — a team with a now-19-year-old phenom.

Spain.

‘Still who he is’

Patrick Mahomes did not miss a single rep in one of Reid’s most grueling training camps in St. Joseph. But as the team returned to Kansas City and prepared rookie Garrett Nussmeier to play the final preseason game, it offered Mahomes a day off practice.

Well, not really.

Mahomes didn’t take any first-team reps, but nine months removed from major surgery, he operated as the scout-team quarterback, flicking sidearm passes and off-platform throws.

“I’m a competitor,” he said. “I’m not going to lose who I am.”

He’s been who he is for all 274 days, even if football hasn’t been part of him.

The best player in the Chiefs’ building is still the first player in the building. Even today, as the rehab marches on, he parks his truck in the lot at roughly 5:30 a.m. so he can be on the training table by 6 a.m. and arrive on time for the meeting by 7.

“For six years, it was convenient for him (to lead) because of the success, and you could see his work ethic,” Bolton told The Star. “But now it’s not convenient for him, and this is still who he is.”

When he started this process, the next game — the next play — was nine months away. Or, you know, 274 days.

It’s been day.

After day.

After day.

After a hot training camp practice last month in St. Joseph, Mahomes walked off the field and toward the long, steep hill that leads to the locker room, bypassing a car that offered him a ride.

He stretched his arms outward and smiled. In the distance, a toddler wearing a checkered red shirt, white skirt and Adidas shoes waddled toward him as fast as she could. They embraced for a hug, and then Mahomes lifted her to the sky.

Golden, 20 months old now, is not only walking but running.

Mahomes beat her to it, by the way, barely.

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